EU Elections

Nope, you can definitely have an opinion on leaving the EU, I just find it weird that people who claim to be educated see our country making a success of going it alone.

The level of complexities in something that has been boiled down by Populists to something as simple as "we should just leave the EU" are staggering. Not something the ill-informed population of any country should be asked to decide on. We vote MPs in for a reason, primarily they're supposed to make decisions for the good of the country, not for the votes of their constituents.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.
— Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol (3 Nov. 1774)

The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate.
— Winston Churchill, Duties of a Member of Parliament (c.1954-1955)

Duty to country first, duty to constituents second.

FFS, this country is nuts.

 

Oh, I agree it shouldn't have been done at all. It only happened because the Tories were scared of UKIP. Once it had been promised in the Tory election manifesto though, a two-thirds majority requirement should have been built in.

 

You are quite correct in the above, in the job description for an MP as set out by the Houses of Parliament clearly state:
To attend, debate and contribute and to then communicate to their constituents.

Unfortunately most people (including me) thought they were supposed to be a representative

 

No need for any of that mate, choose which way anyone votes.
Sadly, it's association brought about by the far right mugging the leave campaign & those whose political awareness is dictated by the Sun..
Not all leave voters are racists, but all racists voted leave. Etc..

 

It's an interesting point. I despise the party system. It goes against the whole idea of electing someone to weigh each issue on its merits rather than voting on party lines. The size of constituencies in the UK makes it virtually impossible to have a reasonable knowledge of the character and views of the candidates.
Ideally we should be able to elect someone we know and trust to make decisions on our behalf, not some random name on a rosette.

 

Agreed

 

Take it that you cant answer for yourself. There are several views on democracy and I just wondered what yours was. I already know what google says.

 

the tories have a remain majority within their party

 

our relatives died to stop the onslaught of the germans, the british thought they were a threat to not only mainland britain but also our empire,this and the fact that britain and france had given poland assurances that both would protect and help them in the event of a german invasion
i doubt very much we went to war so that eventually we could have a political union with the rest of europe

to stop german dominance was the reason we went to war

 

No chance! I’ll bet they have a massive leave majority within the party and we’ll soon see that when they ‘elect’ the next PM.

 

That's old school euroscepticism. Impressive.

 

thats not euro scepticism, its just stating why we went to war

still if you feel better for denying it then sleep easy pal

 

the tories had a majority of remain mp's during the referendum and please dont forget that it was the tories who took us into the eu

 

I don’t disagree with that Dek but you were talking about the Party. That’s got about 125,000 members and I’ll bet you anything you like there’s a huge majority that support Brexit.
In terms of the Parliamentary Tory MPs. I’d bet there’s a majority in there who now support Brexit (and a few more will have moved to that position in the last 24 hours!)

 

Perhaps they could start by dispelling a few myths..

One of the constant arguements for remaining in the Eu is the notion of Freedom of Movement, where people seem to have a holistic viewpoint where they can live work study and retire anywhere in side the EU.

FOM isn’t that at all. It relates to the movement of workers economic agents as opposed to well human beings.

It isn’t based on progressive tolerant liberal migration policies but right wing capitalist free market economics. It excludes a very large majority of people, the poor, the unemployed for example even though that has gradually expanded towards being more inclusive eg family’s, students etc over recent. Years.

What about the veto. We can veto laws right?

Well since the introduction of Lisbon in 2009, The vast majority of EU law is now made via the Ordinary Legislative Procedure ( article 294 tfeu.)

The basic law making areas in the EU is the commission,parliament and council. A fouth body may become invoked should the council and parliament have a disagreement, the conciliation council.

So starting from the top. Does the Uk have a veto in the Commison? Nope. No member state does. A commissioners first responsibility is to the Eu state and they undertake an oath to the same effect.

Even if we treat the commissioner appointed by the Uk as a representative of the same, they still have no veto. All decisions are made here by simple majority and with one representative even if they did UK have no veto or majority.

Parliament next...

Again simple majority voting wins the day again here. The majority required is 376 MEPs. The uk has 71. The UK on their own cannot veto any new law inside the European Parliament.

So the council. This is where the ministers turn up eg finance defence and so forth. Not to be confused with the councils state member PMs turn up to to discuss policy.

The council votes by what’s known as Qualifed Majority Voting. To pass a vote it must encompass 55% of member states encompassing 65% of the population.

To block a vote requires a minimum number of council members but they must represent 35% of the Eu population.

If you add the UK, France and Germany together you do not get the numbers to block or veto any new law at this stage.

So based on that, the EUs political body can impose on the UK a law even if all our representatives in theEU voted against it.

So what happens when an Eu law gets passed.. can uk parliament veto it then?

Not really.

EU regulations have direct effect and primacy over UK law.

Eu directives must be implemented UK, usualy by by domestic legislation, even if theUK refuses to do so, the directive still hold direct effect and primacy over uk law.

The only aspect of the EU law making the UK does hold a veto is on EU treaties themselves.


What about transparency? Can you see your MEPs expenses?

 

I agree it's not strictly a Leave prerogative, but the fact that turnout was up in Remain areas and down in Leave might suggest it was a factor.

 

Some myths debunked: see http://www.lindamcavanmep.org.uk/how-the-eu-works.php

 

An idiotic response.... we can all do it...

 

So the leave will be split in two.... that will definitely help remain. What about leave with a deal or leave without...